


It’s a Zoo Out There

by Qmii_Productions



Series: Animal Hybrid AU [2]
Category: OMORI (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Animals, Animal Instincts, Cat/Human Hybrids, Deer/Human Hybrids, Dog/Human Hybrids, F/M, Featuring scientifically-accurate animal behavior!, Fluff, Hybrids, Rabbit/Human Hybrids, tw blood for antler shedding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 08:09:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29730924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qmii_Productions/pseuds/Qmii_Productions
Summary: In a world of animal-human hybrids, life throws you curveballs. Particularly when it comes to one’s own species-unique biology.—A variety of snippets in the Animal Hybrid AU.
Relationships: Aubrey/Sunny (OMORI), Hero/Mari (OMORI)
Series: Animal Hybrid AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2185113
Comments: 13
Kudos: 87





	1. The Red “Skittle”

**Author's Note:**

> I primarily made this to prove that I can use this AU for stuff other than porn.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A tiny light is all it takes to get Sunny on all fours.

Sunny laid on his house’s couch, reading the Captain Spaceboy comic he purchased earlier. It was quite late, the sun setting its evening rays behind him. His feline eyes granted him superb night vision, allowing him to see in the dimmed room as if it were daylight. They also made his peripheral vision especially acute, particularly when something fast-moving went into his field of view. Something like a bright red Skittle-sized dot that just appeared on the bench, right beside his head.

Immediately shutting his comic, Sunny’s pupils contracted into slits. Then he swat his hands towards the dot, only for it to zip out of reach. The cat hybrid’s ebony tail lashed in irritation. This little bright dot was mocking him.

His mind swamped with instinct, Sunny went on a frantic pursuit around the living room. As the tiny dot zipped to and fro, the catboy yowled in annoyance. He unsheathed his white claws, creating deep gashes (that fortunately weren’t permanent) in the carpet. He even resorted to biting the couch when the dot went back to it, his sharp canines puncturing the fabric. Sunny soon ended up with shallow red gashes on his face from having the dot suddenly between his eyes.

Meanwhile, an unknowing boy just across the street from Sunny’s house was inspecting a laser pointer.

“Eh, this thing’s boring,” he said as he threw it away, unaware that it caused Sunny to jump out a window in the same direction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, this was taken from a snippet of TAWOG. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea-yTed3yDg


	2. Ear-Rub Endorphins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So, next to a good belly rub, why do all dogs love having their ears massaged? Nerves — a whole branch of them — release endorphins that make your dog feel downright relaxed.”  
> -petinsurance.com

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two days ago, I had my dog lean towards me when I scratched behind her ears. That was the start of this great idea.

It was a lovely day at Faraway Park, the six group of friends hanging out again. The two oldest hybrids were chilling on the bench. After a long session of fetch between him and Kel, he was tuckered out, his head resting on his favorite pillow: his girlfriend’s lap.

Hero lightly thumped one of his feet as Mari scratched the base of his ears. She always made sure not to scratch too hard; they were much sharper than the dogboy’s thanks to their retractibility. Kel glanced towards the scene with envy. Turning towards Sunny, he got an idea.

“Sunny, can you do me a favor?” He asked the catboy, going towards the giant cat slide he was perched upon. “Could you scratch my ears?”

Sunny looked towards the dogboy with a bit of confusion. “Why would I do that?”

“Uh... I don’t get pets often,” Kel replied, a little embarrassed. He sat next to the 16-year-old. “And when I do, it’s not around my ears.”

“Ok.” Sunny complied. He reached his right hand towards the base of one of his dark brown semiprick ears. They took root in his scalp, obscured by human hair of the same color. He started to gently massage with his soft finger pads. He briefly froze when Kel twitched the flap, then continued.

“Hey, I appreciate the startup, but can you get to the scratchy part, please?” The dog hybrid asked. “Hero always looks forward to that when Mari pets him. I wanna know what that feels like.”

The catboy internally hesitated. “You sure about this? I don’t want to hurt you...”

“You won’t,” Kel assured. “I’ll let you know otherwise.”

Sunny steeled himself, extending his claws on his outstretched hand. He began scratching slowly, lightly grazing the flap’s fine skin with the tips. Kel’s eyes widened, then closed. How come Hero never told him about this? No wonder he craved Mari’s pets. This felt like a massage from heaven.

“Oh, oh...keep doing that...” The dogboy mumbled. “That’s really, really nice...”

Kel’s curly tail started wagging, his head bending left onto Sunny’s claws. The cat hybrid took this gesture as a sign to scratch harder, but he was still worried about injuring the dogboy.

Instead, just as his left foot began to twitch like his brother’s, the dog hybrid ended up leaning until he slid down the cat slide. He landed face-first into the playground substrate.

Before Sunny could ask if he was ok, Kel raised one of his handlike paws with a thumbs-up.

“WORTH IT!” He exclaimed into the dirt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Initially, I wanted this to be a chapter about dog noses, but I didn’t like the idea of Kel noting someone farted.  
> According to the AKC, semiprick ears can also be called "pendant". But that same term can also refer to completely floppy ears when I searched it online, so I changed it to semiprick.


	3. A Lucky Rabbit’s Foot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aubrey teaches Sunny a quirk about her anatomy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Introducing a ship into this. Hope you enjoy it.

Aubrey stared at Sunny’s feline feet as they both laid down on the couch. His black paws were adorned with light pink pads. Her fur-covered fingertips poked one of the fleshy orbs. Sunny withdrew his foot, looking down towards the rabbitgirl.

“What are you doing?” He inquired, placing down the book he was reading.

“Testing something,” Aubrey replied. “Hold still.”

She grabbed the black paw, her thumb over his metatarsal pad and her pointer behind his toes. She pushed down, exposing ivory thorns for claws. Aubrey did this a few times, with a look of fascination in her eyes.

“You’re really lucky to have these,” she said.

“Why do you say that?” Sunny asked. “Don’t you have any?”

“Geez, you really haven’t noticed all these years? Not even on all the dates we’ve been on together?” Sunny blushed a bit, his ears starting to flatten in shame. Starting to feel a twinge of guilt, Aubrey lifted her feet into his field of view this time. She had white-and-black-spotted paws with sharp, yellowish nonretractable claws. Where Sunny expected toe pads, he could only see more fur.

“Woah,” the catboy whispered. “I thought your fingers were defective or something-“

Aubrey kicked him in the face, filling the right half of her boyfriend’s face with soft fur. “No, dumbass. I just don’t have any.” She raised her right hand up as a reminder for his unobstructed left eye - no pads there, either.

“Why did you say that I was lucky to have them?” The catboy asked.

“Apparently, bunny feet don’t have paw pads to be more ‘durable’.” The rabbit hybrid answered with finger quotes. “Which I think is bullshit, because the skin there is as fragile as paper.”

Sunny interpreted that as a sign that her feet were sensitive. He began to purr, sending pleasant vibrations into the rabbitgirl’s fluffy sole.

“What are  _ you _ doing?” Aubrey asked this time.

“Your foot feels nice.” Sunny purred with glee.

Aubrey smiled, placing both feet so that his face was completely covered. She could still hear the catboy’s rumbles from the crack between her soles.

“Weirdo.”

But she was his weirdo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aubrey is an American fuzzy lop rabbit. Her original fur color is white with black spots, with both of her ears being black. She only dyed her head hair and ears pink. Mari just wanted her scalp dyed, so her ears are still black.  
> Fun fact: rabbits are _both_ plantigrade and digitigrade. They walk on their heels at rest, but run on their toes. Aubrey can do the same. Her thighs and calves are proportionally longer than that of 100% digitigrade hybrids, so that they’re closer to that of a human. However, when she runs, she bends her knees. If I were to structure her legs like that of a cat or dog, then she would be abnormally short when she stands on her heels. Like this: https://twitter.com/shellsist/status/1200490899358113792  
> Edit 3/16/21: decided to go semi-plantigrade for the most accuracy.


	4. Elaborate Symbols of Maturity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basil grows his first set of antlers.

Basil’s cloven hooves clacked against the sidewalk as he ran towards his group of friends. The five were surprised to find that he was wearing one of Polly’s baseball caps. Basil didn’t usually wear hats, unless it was too bright out.

“Hey everyone!” He panted.

“Well, Basil, what’s with the headgear?” Mari asked.

A wide grin spread across the deerboy’s face, before he pulled the cap off. The other hybrids noticed two round bumps right above his temples. They resembled golden-brown buttons made of fuzz.

“I’m getting my first antlers!” The buck exclaimed.

The others congratulated the blonde, Mari even applauding, while Kel went for a closer look. If there was one thing deer hybrids were known for, is that they took great pride in their antlers. They were a sign of maturity in bucks, and usually appeared in the mid-teens.

“Woah,” Kel exclaimed. “Does this mean you can’t wear hats anymore?”

“Well, it’s a little complicated,” Basil replied. “You’ll see in due time.”  


* * *

The lumps of fuzz grew quickly. Extremely quickly. Although roe deer didn’t have the biggest racks of bone, Basil felt his head grow heavier every day.

He and the others where in the forest, beetle-hunting like old times. Although the others were using nets, Basil opted to use his camera as his main weapon of capture. One of his diamond-shaped ears flicked towards the characteristic low buzzing of a particularly large beetle. He began to crawl into the undergrowth, flinching slightly when branches scratched against his velvet.

He saw a rhinoceros beetle on a stump, overtaken by vines and shrubs. Basil set his finger on the shutter, ready to snap, when he felt something else on his growing antlers. However, the buck paid it no mind, thinking it was just another branch that fell on him.

And then a net hit him in the face.

“AH!” The buck exclaimed, immediately recoiling from the impact. He clutched his velvet, rubbing to soothe the pain.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!” He heard Mari apologize. “You had a beetle on top of you, and your antlers blended in with the branches!”

“Hey, it’s alright,” Basil replied. “I didn’t notice you approaching. It’s a perk of having soft feet in comparison to mine, I guess. Ow...”

“Are you okay?” Mari asked, concerned that she may have caused a circular dent in his head.

“I’m fine, really!” Basil reassured. “My antlers are still growing, so they’re just sensitive.”

“HEY, MARI!” Kel shouted from the distance. “HERO’S BEING HARASSED BY A SPIDER AGAIN!”

Mari sighed, before pulling Basil up by the hand to join up with the dog brothers.

* * *

“AAAAAAGH!!!!”

An uncharacteristic scream erupted from the park. Basil was stunned, but also unsurprised at the same time.

“Aubrey, calm down!” Basil said. “It’s not really that bad!”

“Not that bad?!” The rabbitgirl yelled. “YOUR HEAD IS FUCKING BLEEDING!”

“His head is WHAT NOW?!” Hero ran towards the source of the commotion, along with the other hybrids.

“What’s going oaaaAAAAHHHH!!!!” Now it was Kel’s turn to scream.

Basil sighed as he saw everyone else’s reactions at the new state of his antlers. The velvet was in the process of shedding, with numerous strips hanging off of the blood-stained bone forks. Hero looked like he was about to faint, Mari covered her mouth in concern, while Sunny looked like he was about to cough up a hairball (although their tongues weren’t barbed, cat hybrids still swallowed a lot of hair when they groomed their fur). Kel and Aubrey were left in a state of shock.

“Basil, what’s going on up there?” Mari asked. “Did you get into some sort of accident?”

“No, I did this myself.”

There was a short period of silence.

“My antlers got really itchy today,” Basil elaborated. “And before I knew it, my velvet was falling off.”

“Doesn’t it hurt?” Kel asked, mortified.

“Surprisingly, it doesn’t.” The buck unflinchingly pulled off a strip of fuzzy skin to prove his point. “I think the itch came from my pedicles.”

“Why does this happen?” Hero asked, gathering his courage to not throw up.

“When my antlers reach maximum size, the skin surrounding it dies,” Basil explained. “That’s when I peel it off.”

“You’ve got some tiny headgear, then.” Aubrey mustered to comment. Though she couldn’t vomit, she still felt sick to her stomach at the gorey sight.

“My antlers are only small right now because they’re my first set. They’ll get bigger,” Basil said. “Actually, I was gonna ask you guys...could you scratch off the rest of the velvet? My nails aren’t the best for this...”

* * *

Winter was approaching, and the increasing number of gale signified it. Basil shivered in the bench as he watch Kel play a few hoops. Despite the weather, he took it upon himself to exercise. Thank goodness for winter coats, or he wouldn’t still be wearing shorts. Basil’s leg fur was also thicker than usual, but he still wore long pants for extra protection. He was busy writing captions for his photo album.

“HEADS UP, BASIL!” He heard the dogboy exclaim. The buck looked up, only to get socked in the face with a basketball.

When he came to, he felt his head feel lighter, and not just in a mental sense. Once Basil raised his head, he felt lopsided. His left side felt heavier than his right.

“Are you alright?!” Kel panicked. “I didn’t mean to do this!”

The buck lifted his hooflike fingernails towards his left pedicle. There was a round depression where his right antler once grew. Sure enough, when he looked to his left, he could see a shed branched bone.

“Actually, thank you,” Basil said. “I needed that.”

“You did?” Kel asked. “But I just knocked one of your horns off!”

“Antlers aren’t horns, Kel,” Basil informed. “Horns are permanent. Antlers are temporary. I’ll grow a bigger set next year.”

“Really? That’s...kinda amazing.”

“It’ll probably take a few more years for mine to reach full size, but for now, thank you.” Basil walked up to pick up the fallen white bone.

“Looks like I can wear hats again soon.”


End file.
